“This project took almost half a year to complete. I cannot describe how much work went into this project. Doing this project alone would take me forever so I had some help from my friends. Here you can see our work compiled in one very long instructable.
Features of this project:
Compatible only with Arduino UNO boards
Drives four IV-3/ IV-3a/ IV-6 VFD tubes. Those tubes are very power efficient, even are more efficient than nixie and look pretty cool. Energy efficiency is almost equal to an LED matrix. I think they look better than nixie.
Power supply 12V DC + 5V DC via Arduino board; a stabilized 12V supply is required
Enclosure design (CAD files) optional
possible applications: clock, thermometer, voltmeter, counter, scoreboard, …
multiple Arduino example sketches available
I know that the text in this instructable is very long but please try to read and watch every text and photo here. Some photos are not great but this is everything I can do. I know I’m not the best photographer.
Supplies:
You can see the count of every part, but I recommend you to print Part List.pdf to use it for a shopping list and later for soldering the parts on PCB. I’ve bought everything from local stores or desoldered it from non-working devices, but if you cant do just like I did, you can order the parts from Aliexpress or Amazon or another store.
Carbon Film Resistors 1/4W 5% that has every resistor that you will need in this list
1x 510 Ω
2x 1K Ω
1x 2K7 Ω
1x 3K9 Ω
13x 10K Ω
12x 68K Ω
12x 100K Ω
12x 220K Ω
Ceramic/ MKT/ MKM Capacitors
1x 2.2 nF (222)
2x 8.2 nF (822) for IV-3 / IV-3a or 2x 22nF (223) for IV-6
1x 100 nF (104)
Electrolytic Semiconductors
4x 22 μF 50V radial
2x 100 μF 25V radial
Discrete Semiconductors
1x 1N400x rectifier diode
4x 1N5819 schottky diode
4x LED 3mm (choose color freely)
13x BC547B NPN transistor
12x BC557B PNP transistor
1x BC639 NPN “power” transistor
1x BC640 PNP “power” transistor
Integrated Circuits
ICM7555 timer IC (must be CMOS version, do not use a standard 555 !)
Connectors and Diverse Parts
2x stackable header ‐ spacing 2.54 mm / .1” ‐ 8 poles
1x stackable header ‐ spacing 2.54 mm / .1” ‐ 6 poles
1x stackable header ‐ spacing 2.54 mm / .1” ‐ 10 poles
4x IV‐3 or IV-3a or IV-6 VFD tube
PCB PCBWay link
If you want to make a clock you can use optional battery-backed RTC DS1307, but if you want to make it smart use an esp8266. You can use the big esp8266 or the small esp8266-01, but I recommend using the small for the clock to look better. If you want to make it even smarter combine esp8266 with a 1-Wire sensor. The sketch supports DS1820, DS18B20, DS18S20, and DS1822. Temperature is displayed every minute.”